1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technology for applying information on settings for one device to another device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Image forming apparatuses into which functions such as copying, network printing, faxing, scanning, and a file server function are incorporated have attained widespread use. Such an image forming apparatus is generally called a “multifunction device” or a “Multi-Functional Peripheral (MFP)”.
The functions of the image forming apparatus have recently increased. For example, the image forming apparatus has a web server and a web browser.
The use of a Web technology makes it easier to export setting-related information from one to the other of two image forming apparatuses as compared to conventional technologies.
The technology below has been proposed as a technology for shifting setting-related information. When setting values are exported from one image processing device, export data is generated using the setting values of the selected setting items acquired from the image processing device, locale information and the setting values of the setting items which depend on locale when the user-selected setting items include setting items which depend on the locale. At the time of importing the setting value to another image processing device, when the locale information is included in the import data and the locale information and the locale information of that another image processing device are different from each other, the locale information of that another image processing device is updated with the locale information included in the import data through authentication of an authorized user who can change the locale information. Then, the setting information of that another image processing device is updated using the setting items depending on the locale which are included in the import data and the setting value of the setting items selected by a user (English abstract of Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2014-093640).
When exporting setting-related information, an image forming apparatus expands data showing the setting-related information in a memory.
The image forming apparatus, however, uses a built-in hardware resource. The memory, therefore, has only a limited area available for the data. The limited area of the memory to be allocated to the data is, for example, 1 megabyte or so while it depends on the specifications of the image forming apparatus.
Thus, when the size of the data is greater than the size of the allocated area, the image forming apparatus divides the data into a plurality of sets of separate data, each of which has a size of the allocated area or smaller. The image forming apparatus then expands the separate data one by one in the memory to export the separate data.
The image forming apparatus is configured to export, at one time, the data on the setting-related information for each item. The user is allowed to select any of data to be imported and to import the selected data to another image forming apparatus.
However, when the data on the setting-related information is divided into a plurality of sets of separate data and the sets of separate data are exported, it is burdensome for the user to select data to be imported.